An Interview With Casino Gold

If you aren’t on that Casino Gold tip, you need to take a step back, re-evaluate your life and then appologize to your mom, because you’ve been a bad child. Well, maybe not all that, but you’re in for a treat if you haven’t.

Based off Los Angeles, Caisno Gold (Luke and Zack Matsuk) came into my radar when Rob De Large showed me the remix they did for his Anger EP. After looking through some of their other work, I realized I’d come across some serious quality producers. I recently got in contact with them to get to know the duo a little better.

Luke: We’ve been playing in rock/metal bands basically full time since we were 15. We’ve done years of touring, putting out records on some of the biggest labels in metal. There was a point though when we just got bored and of the scene and became tired of replacing people in the band.

Zack: The transition into dance music seemed like the next obvious choice. We’ve only been producing electronic music a few years now. It’s totally different from what we used to do, but we love it.

Between the notable techno and acid that you guys make, it seems that you have developed a sound/style that’s uniquely your own. Was this something you guys were aiming to do? Do you plan on experimenting with other sounds?

Luke: We never really sat down and talked about a certain sound we wanted to go for. It just kind of developed over the past year. We always try and keep the energy up in our tracks; always have something changing, something progressing. You’ll never hear 16 bars of the same exact riff in our tracks, haha.

Zack: In all our newest unreleased tracks, we’ve been experimenting with a lot of new chord progressions and sounds we typically didn’t previously use. Still Casino Gold, but with a lot of new elements to keep it fresh and different. We also are definitely trying to incorporate more vocals.

What artists have been some of your major influences?

Luke: We both really love everyone on labels like BNR and Lektroluv. We also draw our intensity, as we previously discussed, from our roots playing rock and metal songs.

Zack: Im enjoying a few of our new tracks … but you can’t know what I’m talking about yet…

What is your current production setup like?

Luke: We run Ableton Live on our Macbook Pro. We use mostly Waves Plug ins, Sylenth and Absynth softsynths, all run through a pair of Yamaha HM80′s. As well as a few Condenser Mics, Tube Pre’s and Compressors, mostly for vocals. These days you can create almost any sound digitally, from a software. Obviously, ideally you would love to have 29 $3,000 analog keyboards, but we’re not all Columbian druglords, unfortunately. One Day.

Zack: I run a kety-tar through a small Crate combo amp with the distortion up all the way among other things.

Is there a certain thought process when creating an original or remixing a song? If so, what is it like?

Zack: It always starts with some inspiration of some sort. Sometimes it starts with a specific idea, sometimes it starts with an idea and it turns into something you didn’t expect. Hopefully, you can capture a vibe you are going for though. If that doesn’t work, start randomly clicking the piano roll as fast as you can.

In regards to shows, I have heard producers wanting to do things ranging from a successful stage-dive to just wanting to sign some boobs. Is there one thing you guys are dieing to do live?

Zack: I think we’d like to incorporate instruments into a live set. Hopefully soon!

What is your drink of choice?

Zack: Gin and tonic.

Luke: Beer and whiskey

Are there any artists you hope to one day work with? Are there any shows or festival you hope to one day play?

Zack: Would love to work with Mumbai Science or Brodinski off the top of my head. Hard Festival is in our back yard. It’s always one of coolest lineups.

Luke: I Love Techno would be crazy.

What are your favorite foods?

Zack: Can’t go wrong with a burrito. Also, two pieces of bread with things in between is usually good, too. Chipotle used to be my favorite food until I ate it 12 straight days.

Luke: BBQ

You have been in the studio for hours, brain fried, and need a break. What do you do?

Zack: Punch babies and quit the group for 25 mins, than play Metallica solos on my key-tar.